Arlene Corwin Poetry

Tourists: Each land I see on TV

Shows vacationers, Japan to Germany.

Walking around Albania!

Of all the former tyrannies,

Isolated and enclosed,

Unallowed and unallowing place

That turned its face within;

Fortress just across from Greece,

Released at last –

And there they are: the tourists.

Tickets dear and far from home,

Here I sit,

Watching plucky program leader

Roam through history’s magnificence,

Significant; Three thousand years

Of wars and tears – and tourists

Curious about

The food, the folk, the houses, språk*

The world outside, the sea outwide…

I’m stupefied. And mystified.

Where do they find the energy! Curiosity?

And wherefrom comes the mania

To travel to Albania?

* Swedish for language. I used it because it was and appropriate rhyme,

Albanian Observation 1.15.2016

Our Times, Our Culture II; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II;

Arlene Corwin